In perhaps a first of its kind, this entrepreneurship internship class is a collaboration between the entrepreneurship major in the Fowler College of Business, and the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts. The goal of the course is to replace a traditional onsite internship experience with a interdisciplinary, semester-long course that incorporates learnings from both the Management Department and the Music Department at San Diego State University (Michael Sloan, MGT 401, Dr. Eric Starr, MUS 530). Semester-based research and learning culminates into students competing to develop a music-oriented startup business plan at the end of the semester.

This experiential approach creates cross-disciplinary student teams from two colleges working on a potential music business startup. Students from the music and business programs form collaborative teams as an innovative approach to bring music, technology and business together to accelerate the development of industry-changing start-ups. The student teams will develop and pitch a business plan at the end of the semester for the development of either a new recording studio or the creation of live music events.

The Lavin Entrepreneurship Center is supporting the first ever Startup Music Competition. If these potential startups merit additional support, they will be encouraged to apply to the ZIP Launchpad Incubator at SDSU.